


and i would have saved juliet

by skittidyne



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Arranged Marriage, Curses, Forced Marriage, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 11:40:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6904423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skittidyne/pseuds/skittidyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did you know my family is cursed?” Tetsurou asks suddenly, because he does sometimes want Kenma’s attention, in spite of everything else. </p><p>He is rewarded by the smaller boy glancing up again and the stilling of his quill. </p><p>“My brother’s going to have to get married twice,” Tetsurou tells him, “and no one is sure who it’s gonna be. But he’s definitely getting married soon. I have to get all kinds of new clothes for it and the tailor always sticks me because he doesn’t like me.” </p><p>“Maybe that’s just because you squirm…” </p><p>“I’m a very well-behaved child. Everyone says so.” </p><p>“I don’t say that,” Kenma points out and resumes his writing practice. </p><p> </p><p>(( or: tetsurou is a prince, and with that, comes certain expectations of his station, regardless of curses or who he falls in love with ))</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i would have saved juliet

**Author's Note:**

> (( title taken from [romeo by until the ribbon breaks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLnsteIpKEw) and really, all of this sad tale is because of that song. beta'd by the ever-wonderful and pain-filled [amorevolous](http://archiveofourown.org/users/amorevolous/pseuds/amorevolous) ))

The first time Tetsurou lays eyes on Kenma, the littler boy is stealing his weight’s worth of apple tarts from the kitchen.

Granted, he’s tiny and his arms are thin as sticks, but it’s still an impressive amount of tarts that he doesn’t spill all over. He jumps, badly, when Tetsurou calls out to him, but he does not fumble a single treat and instead turns to glare reproachfully over his shoulder at him.

“What do you want?” he asks, rudely.

Tetsurou, a confident boy of eight years and royal blood, has never had anyone be _rude_ to him before. The novelty is thrilling. “Where are you taking all those?” he asks with his voice too loud despite his recognition of the concept of _thefts are supposed to be quiet_.

“Hm,” the other boy replies in little more than a grunt. He turns his back on Tetsurou once more, re-shifts the tarts in his arms, and continues down the hallway with tiny little _pats_ of his slippers.

Tetsurou changes tack. (He’s a prince; he knows a thing or two about Strategy.) “If you try to eat all those on your own, you’ll make yourself sick.”

“They’re mine,” is all the response he gets.

Tetsurou curiously follows him across the entire castle, it feels; he has to walk slower than he’s used to, and they have to hide from various adults, and twice they break into frantic runs to flee from Tetsurou’s guards. They end up in one of the libraries, he thinks. At least, there are a lot of books, but also soft cushions to sit on, and the boy dumps his treats on one of them with a sigh like he’s been carrying three times the world’s weight on his shoulders trying to steal a handful of tarts.

Tetsurou flops down onto one of the pillows next to him. He sits cross-legged, like how he’s told he shouldn’t, and steals one of the stolen tarts. “So,” he says around an over-sized mouthful of it, because he’s greatly enjoying this, “now what happens?”

“Those are mine,” the other replies with a pout. His face is very round, Tetsurou notes, and the push of his bottom lip and the puffing of his cheeks makes him seem an awful lot like a pampered and fat pet. The rodent kinds, the ones that his mother declares dirty despite how gleaming their fur is or how cute their squeaks are.

Tetsurou cocks his head to one side and takes another bite of the twice-stolen tart. He’s never liked the apple ones that much, but he’s already committed, now isn’t he? “You could share one. I’m a prince, you know. I could tell you to give me one.”

“I don’t care,” he responds and that, too, thrills Tetsurou in a way he’s never encountered before.

“Give me one,” Tetsurou commands just as his father does.

The other boy just pulls the pillow full of desserts away from him, still frowning fiercely, and puts his body between it and Tetsurou. He doesn’t answer him. Tetsurou wants to keep him and his exciting newness forever.

So he plans to.

 

\--

 

“We’re both second sons,” Tetsurou says with a wide grin that shows off his teeth. His parents don’t like him smiling that way, but _he_ likes it, and his sister says it makes him look like a rogue. Tetsurou, at nine, really likes rogues and thieves and ne’er-do-wells. His parents like that even less than the grinning.

“I knew that,” Kenma replies quietly, quill scratching unevenly over the parchment he’s bent over. His lettering is still very crooked. (And cute, Tetsurou thinks.)

“Oh yeah?” Tetsurou asks, but Kenma does not elaborate. Kenma doesn’t say much, not comparatively, but he knows that Silence Can Be Important. Because he’s clever like that, and even though he’s a child and a sometimes devious one at that, he _has_ been paying attention to the King and Queen and Crown Prince. So, he decides that Kenma’s silences are important, in their own way. As such, he never presses them.

Kenma seems to appreciate this.

“Apparently, second son is more important than third child,” Tetsurou says conversationally. He doesn’t understand that bit, but it still sounds important, so he shares it. Kenma, in the few short months they have known each other, has become the target of most of Tetsurou’s Important Things.

“It’s because daughters can have babies,” Kenma says.

Tetsurou, surprised, looks back up at him and finds those sharp, gold eyes locked onto his. While the novelty of Kenma’s stubbornness has long since worn off, the excitement of having Kenma’s gaze on him so intently hasn’t decreased in the least.

In mere moments, Kenma’s eyes slide away again, and his quill resumes its crooked scratching. Tetsurou has several years’ worth of tutoring on Kenma already, but he can tell Kenma’s smart. He also thinks Kenma is younger than he is, although he has yet to share his age.

“Second son is important because you can’t have a baby,” Kenma mumbles. The tips of his ears, peeking out between locks of dark, loose hair, are very red. “People want to marry girls because they want babies. So… your sister is different. I guess.”

“Do you have a sister, Kenma?” Tetsurou asks curiously.

“I did.”

He doesn’t question further, but he does lean on his elbows on the table and look over Kenma’s handwriting. “My brother’s probably going to get married soon.”

“Hm.”

Tetsurou frowns, uncharacteristic, but Kenma hardly glances in his direction. Kenma’s near-constant, casual dismissal of him, Tetsurou has learned, is not so much a true dismissal so much as it is a sign that Kenma is comfortable in his presence. Kenma is _very_ good at noticing others. If he doesn’t want to notice Tetsurou, then that means he’s special.

“Did you know my family is cursed?” Tetsurou asks suddenly, because he _does_ sometimes want Kenma’s attention, in spite of everything else.

He is rewarded by the smaller boy glancing up again and the stilling of his quill.

“My brother’s going to have to get married twice,” Tetsurou tells him, “and no one is sure who it’s gonna be. But he’s definitely getting married soon. I have to get all kinds of new clothes for it and the tailor always sticks me because he doesn’t like me.”

“Maybe that’s just because you squirm…”

“I’m a very well-behaved child. Everyone says so.”

“I don’t say that,” Kenma points out and resumes his writing practice.

“That’s just because we only see each other when I sneak out to see you.”

“We’re still in the castle…”

“Well, it still means that I’m always getting into trouble just because of you,” Tetsurou says with a prim nod like he’s seen his mother do a thousand times. “So you have a biased view of me and you ought to consider expanding those viewpoints.”

Kenma makes a small, noncommittal sound. Tetsurou does not press him for more.

 

\--

 

“Tetsurou,” his father begins, arms folded, boot tapping. Tetsurou swallows thickly and he wrings the bottom hem of his tunic in his hands. “You are not to avoid your guards. You’re getting older now, and your childish games should be left behind you. You need to have someone with you at all times. Am I understood?”

Tetsurou, logically, knows that this comes directly on the heels of an assassination attempt on his brother just the week before. It hadn’t been something he’d wanted to add to his ever-growing vocabulary.

 _Assassination attempt._ He cannot fathom someone wanting to _kill_ Kisho.

Tetsurou is assigned a new, personal guard, closer to his age and size. If he didn’t know any better, he’d guess that his father wanted him to have a friend other than Kenma; their friendship is newly discovered by his parents, and is not thought highly of.

So he ends up with a boy, hardly older than he is, son of one of his mother’s attendants. His name is Morisuke, and Tetsurou is set on hating him, because he’s Not Kenma and he’s there to prevent any kind of fun or mischief (or assassination attempts).

That is, until Tetsurou actually spends his first full day with the boy.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Tetsurou complains, jogging down the corridor, frowning irritably over his shoulder.

“No. I have to watch you,” Morisuke replies easily.

“You’re not a nurse.”

“Where are you going?”

He has already tried racing this kid, and to his embarrassment, he’d failed; he cannot outstrip him. His only chance is to lose him in the size of the castle, but that, too, is proving fruitless thus far. “I’m going to go see my _real_ friend. His parents are in court today, so that means I get to see him.”

“Is that the little Kenma that the Queen is fond of?”

“She’s fond of him at a distance,” Tetsurou grumbles. Certainly, she had fawned over the boy far more when he was just the occasionally-seen son of a minor noble. They haven’t gone as far as to blame Kenma for Tetsurou’s misdeeds—yet—but he ought to be listening to his tutors instead of running off for the second time this week. Supposedly.

Tetsurou and Morisuke burst into the east-wing library with a slam of the door. Kenma, nestled into a corner with all of the cushions and blankets likely in half the castle, jumps and squeaks.

“Who’s that?” Kenma asks, faintly, his eyes wide and body posture shrinking even more than usual.

Tetsurou gives Morisuke a fresh glower. “No one.”

“You can call me Yaku,” Morisuke offers with a quick, short bow.

“His name’s Morisuke,” Tetsurou corrects. He can feel Morisuke’s glare on the side of his head, but he smoothly ignores him, striding into the room with purpose and throwing himself down on the pillows beside Kenma. He’s getting to be what his sister fondly calls gangly, and that means that his long legs are prone to sticking out no matter how large or well-built their pile is.

To Tetsurou’s immediate and great chagrin, Kenma and Morisuke become comfortable with one another in very little time.

But to his quiet joy, Kenma helps tutor Morisuke, which means that Tetsurou gets to listen to Kenma’s soft voice recite poems, point out errors, and talk them both through problems. He finds newfound peace in napping with them while they study.

 

\--

 

Tetsurou is almost a dozen years of age the first time he kisses Kenma.

He knows what kissing is—they both do, he thinks—because of court appearances and overly inebriated ladies of the court cooing over how much they’ve grown and how cute they are together. Tetsurou and Kenma are allowed to appear at minor functions together now, no longer having to hide their friendship; Kenma’s parents seem rather glad that he’s clinging to Tetsurou’s arm rather than his mother’s skirts.

Tetsurou also knows the difference between the wet and distasteful lips smacking against his cheek and the kind of kiss that he catches his brother doing to one of his guards. _That_ kind is breathless and squirming and secret and makes Kisho give Tetsurou one of his ornamental daggers to keep him quiet.

Tetsurou shows off his new dagger for at least a month. Morisuke has progressed from rolling his eyes to huffing to, eventually, ignoring him and only intervening when Tetsurou is about to cut himself. Kenma has ignored him every time except the first, when he burst into the library brandishing the ruby-encrusted blade with all the finesse of a puppy trying to catch its own tail for the first time.

Although the dagger _is_ nice, Tetsurou cares less about it and more about the noises he’d heard his brother making—and what noises he’d pulled out of his guard.

What he knows of sex is less than what he knows of kissing, but he’s not completely ignorant. He knows that court affairs are more about gossip and scandal than they are about politics, at least the ones he is allowed to attend, and he knows that _affair_ means _sex_ and that means _bad_ but in a way that always makes the ladies grin behind their hands.

Tetsurou has already gotten the same kind of response from them, from when he misbehaves in seemingly specific ways, or when he’s particularly physical when trying to keep Kenma or Morisuke in line.

“ _That little Kuroo_ ,” they say. “ _That cute Tetsurou. He’s certainly a little willful boy, isn’t he? So impetuous, so demanding. You know what he’ll be like in a few years._ ”

So Tetsurou equates the bad kind of kissing with actually good things, like himself, and like being allowed to cling to Kenma in front of the adults, and like being called _a charmer_ or _a scamp_ or even _a rogue_.

He still likes rogues, even if his perception of them has changed a bit in the past few years. There’s less plundering of gold and more stealing of hearts. And the latter involves kissing.

So it isn’t a large leap of logic to see how Tetsurou becomes obsessed with the thought of kissing. And to kiss you need a partner. When he asks Morisuke about the topic, his guard just shrinks back and goes very red in the face. Kenma, when asked, doesn’t bat an eye, and mumbles out something about forbidden romances in books he’s found.

Kisho, when questioned, just asks in return, “Don’t you like that dagger I gave you?”

Not helpful.

Miyuki turns out to be his saving grace. Although Tetsurou is by now far too old to sit in her chamber and listen to her stories, she does allow him to visit to talk from time to time, away from her attendants. Even Morisuke is sent to stand guard outside the room. It’s a quiet, calm time that Tetsurou values highly.

“Why are you curious about kissing?” she asks, not unkindly. She is twice-betrothed now, to be married when she turns sixteen, but Tetsurou has never caught _her_ kissing others in darkened hallways. Maybe she won’t know.

But he has to ask, because he does not believe in wasting others’ time. “The ladies of the court keep saying that I’m turning into someone very handsome,” he says, “and they’re trying to drag me away from Kenma more and more to pay attention to them. And, w-well, isn’t kissing what adults do?”

“You’re not yet an adult,” Miyuki points out.

Tetsurou puffs out his cheeks in a pout that he knows only reinforces her point.

She laughs, soft and light and melodic—everything he associates with her. Tetsurou sets his chin in his hands, elbows on her bed, and grins. She matches him. (Their parents would disapprove.) “Kissing ought to be something two people do when they like each other,” Miyuki tells him. “It is something you should do when you are courting someone, or are betrothed to them.”

Tetsurou is still too naive to catch the _ought_ and _should,_ and he, instead, nods along seriously.

“Of course, you can also kiss people in greeting or to show respect of their rank,” Miyuki adds with a twinkle in her eye. She hides her mouth coyly behind her hand and also says, “That’s why you get so many devoted ladies, Tetsu. They’re paying respect to the youngest prince.”

“I don’t want that kind of respect from them,” he replies and sticks out his tongue.

“Oh, I know. Trust me, there are many kinds of _respect_ I could do without as well. But you must remain courteous in spite of this.”

He did not come here for a lecture, so his tongue remains out.

“Did _you_ have someone you wished to kiss?” she asks.

Tetsurou turns that over in his mind, as he has been for the past several weeks. “Maybe,” he eventually settles on.

It is a month and a half after that when Tetsurou, in full view of the party, takes Kenma’s hand. He pulls the younger boy against him and kisses him full on the mouth, and when they pull apart, he grins and tells him, “I greet and respect you, second son of the Kozume family.”

There’s an immediate clamor of embarrassed hushes and smothered giggles—no one dares laugh outright at the youngest royal child in front of the King and Queen—and Morisuke hastens to drag them apart. Kenma looks momentarily torn between going after Tetsurou, as used to clinging to him as he is during these events, and fleeing from his presence entirely. Tetsurou never finds out which he would choose, as his father comes and pulls Kenma away roughly by an arm.

Miyuki’s unbecoming cackling is heard clearly over the rest of the din in the ballroom.

 

\--

 

The year Miyuki gets married, twice, is the year that Morisuke is ordered to begin Tetsurou’s physical training in earnest.

It has only been basic exercises up until this point: the basics on how to hold a dagger versus a sword, how to wear mail, how to spot someone drawing a weapon near him. Now, he must get up early every morning in order to begin conditioning his body, and in the afternoons, when the sun seems to burn hottest, that he learns how to properly _fight_.

He hates every minute of it.

Morisuke grits his teeth and continues to teach him, alternating with one of Kisho’s personal guards. Tetsurou thinks she’s the captain, or maybe an old captain, but all he knows of her is that she wasn’t the one he saw his brother kissing. Neither she nor Morisuke mind how decidedly unenthused Tetsurou is about learning how to fight.

“My brother will be the one leading armies and duelling for honor,” he groans, laying facedown in the dirt after getting knocked off his feet for the seventh time just today.

“So you don’t want to learn how to defend yourself?” Morisuke asks archly. He nudges Tetsurou with the toe of his boot, and the prince hardly stirs.

“That’s what I have _you_ for, isn’t it?”

He does not see the way Morisuke reddens.

Kenma certainly doesn’t have to go through this. He’s younger, Tetsurou knows for certain, and smaller and generally less important as far as the politics of the kingdom go. He also comes from a poorer family, he thinks; he knows Kenma is nobility, but _everyone_ is poorer compared to Tetsurou. For once, he really wishes he didn’t have all of this stuff available to him. Morisuke has done a good job so far of guarding his life.

Not that anyone’s really tried to _do_ anything to his life. But that just means Morisuke continues to maintain a spotless record.

It isn’t until his brother offers to teach him how to throw knives that Tetsurou develops any kind of interest in fighting or weapons.

Kisho has little time to spend directly with him, although he does begin the ordeal with several personal lessons and feats of his own skill. Tetsurou doesn’t get to see him very often anymore, so this is a rare treat he greatly enjoys. Even after a different trainer takes over, he stops in every couple of weeks to check on Tetsurou, and those days, he glows with pride.

Morisuke says he could live without Tetsurou practicing with knives constantly. Tetsurou could certainly live without all of the cuts he’s earned, too.

But he does like when Kenma offers to help him wash and bandage his hands.

Tetsurou’s hands have slowly been toughening, hard and dry from days spent holding various blades, but Kenma’s are still so soft. He likes Kenma’s touch on him especially because of that fact—but also because of the warmth he feels at those too-gentle touches, too. He wishes he could ask Kenma to touch him more often, but it’s difficult to come up with reasons as to why.

They don’t lay in a pile of pillows together quite so often, anymore. Tetsurou misses that.

He also sometimes thinks of kissing Kenma again. Some place where half the castle _isn’t_ looking at them. Where no one is, ideally. Where Kenma won’t have to be scared and Miyuki won’t laugh and Tetsurou isn’t winked at all night by the adults. Where Kenma doesn’t come to him the next day with a black eye.

“You know, you can defend things besides yourself if you know how to fight,” Morisuke tells him.

Tetsurou nods, shakes his hair out of his eyes, and stands up again.

 

\--

 

“Love and marriage aren’t the same thing,” Kisho tells Tetsurou at his husband’s funeral.

No one had expected that they would have to attend two for him, and not so young at that. Tetsurou isn’t used to seeing his brother like this, either, and he stays secluded in his room for days on end. There’s talk amongst the maids that he’s barricaded himself in there.

Tetsurou, thirteen, is given a grand ball for his birthday that he doesn’t want. His brother doesn’t attend. There are more guests than should be expected of a newly-teenaged prince’s birthday bash, but never let it be said that the Queen wastes an opportunity. Even without Kisho there, she consults many would-be suitors, and Tetsurou is easily shunted to the side in the face of everyone vying for the slightest chance to be considered for the Crown Prince’s hand.

It works in Tetsurou’s favor, in turn. He and Morisuke can slip out of the throngs of partygoers, wrestling with their formalwear. They’re hardly out of sight before Tetsurou slips his circlet off and puts it on Morisuke’s head with a smirk; his guard is too busy fussing with his sash to notice.

“Where do you think Kenma is? I haven’t seen him tonight, and no one from his family greeted me,” Tetsurou whispers as the boys creep steadily away.

“I don’t think he came,” Morisuke replies. He finally notices the circlet and whips it off with a squawk. He and Tetsurou jostle for a bit, trying to pawn it off on each other. “Although it seems like everyone else in the kingdom did. Why were there so many guests tonight?”

“For my brother,” Tetsurou scoffs. He frowns as he shoves the circlet back down on his unruly hair, tilted jauntily just because he feels like it. “Mother is trying to get him married again. It’s easier getting a new one for him than anyone for me.”

“Why?”

“He’s already gotten his curse taken care of,” Tetsurou replies and shrugs.

Morisuke does not get the chance to ask further, as they duck down toward Tetsurou’s chamber and find the greatest surprise of the evening: Kenma, peering into his room like he’s looking for something. He jumps when he hears them approach, but he eases into a small smile when he sees who it is.

Tetsurou does not rush up and kiss him, but he _does_ rush up to him and excitedly clasp their hands together. “I thought you weren’t going to make it tonight! The place is packed and all anyone can talk about is Kisho.”

“I had to sneak out,” Kenma replies. His hands tighten, briefly, on Tetsurou’s. “But, um, I wanted to.”

“Are you going to get into trouble?” Morisuke asks in concern.

“Not if I get back soon.”

“You can’t stay?” Tetsurou asks, happiness wavering in the face of disappointment. Kenma shakes his head and won’t meet his eye. “Oh. Well, can you visit again soon?”

“Maybe… I don’t know. I don’t think my father likes us seeing each other so often right now,” Kenma mumbles. He shakes his head again, then finally tilts his chin back up to look up at Tetsurou’s face. “But, um, h-happy birthday, my prince.”

Kenma has never called Tetsurou that before.

Kenma has also never stood on the tips of his toes to lean up to kiss _him_ before, either.

Morisuke backs away from them with an embarrassed noise, giving them space, and Kenma’s hand carefully comes up to thread his fingers through Tetsurou’s hair. Tetsurou winds his arms tight around him, so tight, tightly enough that he never wants to ever let go.

But Kenma parts their mouths after a breathless little noise and bashfully looks back down. “I didn’t really have time to get you anything, s-so…”

“That’s the best gift,” Tetsurou replies honestly. “But can I kiss you again?”

Even in the dim light of the hallway, Tetsurou can see the deep shade of red that takes over Kenma’s face. But Kenma gives him a tiny nod, anyway.

Love and marriage aren’t the same thing, but Tetsurou certainly doesn’t need the politics of marriage to be happy with Kenma. _Maybe it’s better that they’re separate_ , he thinks.

 

\--

 

There is unrest in the castle and Tetsurou is old enough to understand most of it.

Kisho is still unwed, still mourning his husband, and surprisingly, that is not the direct cause of it. It is what his marriage had meant. As far as Tetsurou can tell, there had been conditions to Kisho’s marriage—that is he is used to. Miyuki had moaned and groaned for a _long_ time about all of the caveats of her marriage, which had strangely included having to cut her hair short.

(She is now sick with child, and does not complain about the shorter hair when she spends so much time bent over various buckets and basins.)

Kisho’s conditions, on the other hand, had involved adopting an heir.

They were to adopt one of his husband’s younger cousins after a certain amount of time. Tetsurou thinks it would coincide with something else happening, but he also thinks that it would involve the other family, since he knows his father is not about to step down from the crown just yet.

“We could finally be rid of that awful curse,” his mother frets. “We could finally get other blood to save our line.”

“Not our blood,” is always his father’s gruff reply.

“What’s done is done.”

They will not let Kisho have the child now, nor will the family allow anyone else to marry him, crown or not. The crown prince is left unwed and childless. His parents are left fighting all the time.

Miyuki’s pregnancy is rough, but she ends up giving birth to a healthy daughter. But, despite the best healers and doctors in the kingdom, she does not regain her own health afterward. She remains sickly and weak. The beautiful heart of the royal line must stay shut away, fighting against unknown ills.

Tetsurou, third in line and just now bearing the true focus of his parents, does not expect the sudden pressure that all of this brings onto him.

“We should begin to search for options,” his mother murmurs behind her fans and high collars. “It’s never too early. We shouldn’t let what happened with Kisho affect this.”

“Neither my first- nor second-born are dead yet,” his father replies.

“They don’t have to be to make Tetsurou any less important.”

As a prince, Tetsurou has always known he’s been _important_ , but he doesn’t like this new meaning of the word. His weapons training falls to the side, reverting to maintaining his body and forms rather than teaching him anything new, and he’s given new tutors on any number of subjects ranging from languages to courtesy to strategy.

The upside is that he’s allowed to see Kenma as much as he wants.

The Kozume family has seemed to recognize that the two boys are stuck on each other by now, and Tetsurou sees no more signs of them fighting it. Kenma studies with him, sharing tutors and lessons, and Tetsurou shows him how to dodge punches and wield daggers in the evenings. More often than not, Kenma ends up bunking with Morisuke rather than returning to his own home or his family’s chambers at the castle.

More amusingly, Tetsurou has noticed his own growth spurt—but neither Kenma nor Morisuke seem to have gone through the same thing. His guard is even older than he is, and it’s something Tetsurou teases him mercilessly for; he towers over both of them, and almost half the time now, if he and Morisuke get into a scuffle, he can use his size to win.

There are good points to his life.

 

\--

 

Miyuki dies during the coldest part of the winter when his parents were busy interviewing prospects for marriage. Tetsurou does not even know for whom anymore. All he knows is that he hadn’t seen his sister in months, and his parents hadn’t seen her in even longer.

Her husband had gotten elevated in rank due to the marriage—they had selected a noble from within their own court rather than a foreign prince like Kisho’s—but now he is left alone with a child suffering from a curse that he’ll never have the status to repair. (Her name is Takara. Tetsurou likes her.)

There’s talk of Kisho getting remarried and adopting his niece. There’s talk of Tetsurou finally getting betrothed. There’s talk of drowning Takara and disowning Miyuki’s husband.

Miyuki had killed herself. Why not add infanticide as a counterpoint to her mother’s suicide?

It’s not so much a disgrace to the family as it is another political hurdle for his parents to fret over. It makes Tetsurou sick, but he cannot say anything. Kenma holds him when he cries over his sister, at the thought of his niece dying as well.

Morisuke falls ill hardly a fortnight after Miyuki’s death. It adds a new layer of stress and pain that Tetsurou’s life has become, and he hardly leaves his room as a result. Morisuke’s replacement guard is twice his age and three times as foul-tempered, though Tetsurou does not fear him like he fears the prospect of further death. Kenma doesn’t sleep with Morisuke during that time, terrified as they are of the fever, and instead stays in Tetsurou’s room.

With everything else going on in the castle, Tetsurou is certain no one even notices the indiscretion.

Kenma spends almost a month in Tetsurou’s arms. They study together, practice in the limited indoor space, and keep each other warm at night. Neither of them speak of Morisuke or Miyuki. Twice, Kenma gently inquires about Kisho.

But Kenma values silence, so they spend a lot of quiet time together on those terrible, snowy days.

Morisuke’s fever eventually breaks, though it takes another week for him to return to duty as Tetsurou’s personal guard. Even with Morisuke’s health restored, however, Kenma does not return to sleeping in the guard quarters with him; he remains in Tetsurou’s bed when he stays with them. There is no discussion of this. It just happens. Tetsurou is happy it happens.

But even the bright spot in his life that is Kenma cannot hold against more grim news: Kisho shares Miyuki’s last letter with Tetsurou, against their parents’ wishes, and Kisho does not get to adopt the foreign child.

Tetsurou gets a peek into how irrevocably unhappy his sister was and how deeply she grieved her first marriage. Kisho loses what political muster he had, and becomes unwed and childless once more, a pawn returned for the King and Queen to move at their leisure.

“Why did you give me this?” Tetsurou demands of him. The papers in his fist are crumpled and worn and tear-stained. He misses the memory of his happy, grinning sister, the one who laughed too loudly and told him bedtime stories about charming rogues who fought the world and always won.

His brother never answers him. Kisho doesn’t speak much anymore, and his silences are not ones Tetsurou can stand.

 

\--

 

Tetsurou is now officially of marriageable age, and his parents have screaming matches nearly every time they see each other over it. It’s gotten so bad that even other nobles are aware of it, and they try less and less to hide it during important functions. Tetsurou fears the future that lies in store for his family.

“It will be okay,” Kenma whispers to him, late at night. Their fingers are intertwined between them, and Kenma’s long hair is loose and splayed out on the pillows around him. Even now, they tend to fall into pillow piles. Tetsurou buries his head beneath them and blocks out the world.

Tetsurou does understand that marriage is a political play for nobility. But he’s also old enough now to realize that what his brother said to him was a lie; Kisho had loved his husband, and his loss had affected him deeply.

“Do you think,” Tetsurou begins in a low, rough voice, “that my brother or my sister was the lucky one?”

Kisho, who fought and conspired to marry the one he loved, and ended up losing him? Miyuki, who married the one she was told to and with a smile, and ended it on her terms?

“Hm,” Kenma replies, thoughtful. He squeezes Tetsurou’s hands. “…Maybe you could be the lucky one, if there has to be one.”

“I think you’re my lucky one,” Tetsurou replies. He gathers Kenma up in his arms, pulling their bodies flush against one another, and Kenma does not squirm away or complain. It makes things seem almost too hot beneath all of the blankets.

“You don’t really like being a prince, do you,” Kenma says, and it’s not a question.

Tetsurou answers it anyway. “No.”

“Then… I wish you weren’t.”

Tetsurou lets out a bitter laugh against Kenma’s silky hair. “I wish that, too, a lot of the time. My mother wants to marry me off soon.” Twice, of course. Each one requires negotiating a contract and dowry. Each one requires sifting through dozens of petitions for the position, either position, and that makes Tetsurou feel disgusting in a way that’s new and unwelcome.

“What if Kisho could do something?” Kenma asks. His voice is small but oddly hopeful, or else Tetsurou is projecting too much onto him. It’s possible.

His brother _is_ still technically the Crown Prince; neither the King nor Queen have made any real steps toward stripping him of the title. Both of them have threatened it, at various points, but he’s still valuable. Tetsurou knows it’s a hollow wish to hope that Kisho’s importance continues to outweigh his own.

“You know, I once caught my brother kissing one of his guards,” Tetsurou says. He’s not sure why the memory, seemingly ages old, comes to him now. “That’s why he gave me that dagger of his. That’s why I thought to kiss you at the ball.”

“Alright,” Kenma replies quietly.

Sour thoughts of marriage and love and curses and sinful noises in dark corridors run through his mind. Tetsurou reaches down and tilts Kenma’s chin up, and they stare at each other in the dim room. Kenma’s eyes are still large, still round, still so intent. If nothing else, Tetsurou understands why his brother would go to such lengths—a treaty with a foreign nation, securing a blood heir that isn’t their own cursed blood—when he looks at Kenma like this.

He wishes he could do the same.

He knows he can’t. Kenma’s family is content to let their friendship remain, but they have nothing to offer the royal family. Tetsurou doesn’t know anyone outside of the castle walls. He himself has nothing to offer his parents. Nothing has been decided yet, at any rate, which is the biggest specter in his future; he doesn’t know how to fight against an unknowable enemy.

“What if we got married,” he says anyway. He can’t meet Kenma’s eyes, and instead looks down at Kenma’s hand, which he takes again in his own. “What if we got married, and we could be happy together, and we adopted a royal cat. What if no one else had to be cursed.”

“You shouldn’t marry me,” Kenma replies. He sounds scared, and that prompts Tetsurou to raise his gaze, because he can’t stand the thought of Kenma frightened. Kenma’s lips are trembling, and his body is stiff against Tetsurou’s.

“No,” Tetsurou agrees. He leans down to press feather-light kisses against Kenma’s temple. “But I want to love you. They can be separate.” They _should_ be separate. Weddings have never been good for his family.

But _consorts_ and _affairs_ and _sinful relations_ don’t sound right for Kenma. Kenma deserves better. Kenma deserves to be lifted free of his family and status, to be showered with love and adoration, to be the kind of prince that Tetsurou liked being when he was eight. Tetsurou has never really liked the stuffiness of weddings, the formalwear and politics and falsity of it all.

But he likes the idea of a wedding. He likes what the wedding is for the common person.

 _A romantic_ , his sister would call him.

His sister fancied herself a romantic at one point, too.

 

\--

 

Tetsurou muffles his groan as best he can into Kenma’s shoulder. The circlet is askew on Kenma’s head, threatening to fall off with every movement he makes, not to mention the steep tilt of his head. Tetsurou, if he trusted his voice not to give them both away, would love to pay his respects to the long, unmarred column of Kenma’s throat, but as it is, Kenma is fraying him.

“My prince,” Kenma breathes, and it’s the second time in their life that he has called Tetsurou that. He speeds up his rhythm, and Tetsurou bites back another noise, mouthing at Kenma’s sweat-slick skin where he can reach it.

This is not the first time they’ve done this, but it is the first time since it was announced that Tetsurou was betrothed.

Kenma’s fingers tighten on his shoulders and his rhythm begins to stutter as much as his words do. “My prince—my Tetsurou. M-My, my, _mine_ ,” and then it lapses into a half-coherent chorus of _mine_ as he begins to lose his rhythm on Tetsurou’s lap.

“Yours,” Tetsurou breathes, agrees, promises, his voice coming out hoarse and wrecked, “always yours.”

Kenma finishes with hardly a touch for himself; all of his attention has been on Tetsurou, this entire time. He tightens around him, and Tetsurou groans again as he reaches his climax as well, only half a heartbeat behind Kenma. The circlet finally slips off of Kenma’s hair and _clangs_ to the ground, but it’s late enough that no one would hear it in this part of the castle who did not already hear their barely-concealed cries.

“I love you,” Tetsurou tells him as he cups Kenma’s face. He pulls him close to kiss him, chaste and sweet and everything he thinks of Kenma.

Kenma blinks up at him, and Tetsurou thinks it’s going to be another one of his silences—he’s used to those, and it’s the usual response he gets, although he knows Kenma means no harm by it. But instead, after dropping his gaze, he murmurs, “I love you, too.”

Tetsurou presses them flush against each other, heedless of the mess, wanting to convey all of his feelings (his longing, his devotion, his adoration and appreciation and affection) into every point of contact between them.

He’s to meet his betrothed tomorrow. The wedding will be next month. He doesn’t want to believe his parents cruel people, but even he has to admit it’s terribly convenient for them to have such a tight schedule for his life when the decision itself seemed to take several long, loud years.

He is not to marry a foreign prince or princess—despite all of his parents’ conniving and praying, he is still the second son (second son, now second child) in a cursed royal line of a fairly small country, and he does not hold much sway. But she is nobility, of a far-off court, and their union will strengthen ties between the countries and hopefully lead to future prosperity.

His first marriage has not been decided yet. He does not know who his sacrificial lamb will be.

He’s already sworn to Kenma and himself that he will be honest with his bride; he will tell her what Kenma means to him. If she is good and gracious, then there won’t be a problem. If she is not, then Tetsurou vows to stand strong regardless. There is nothing more his parents can do to him; he has come to peace with what lays in store in his future. He cannot give Kenma all of himself, and soon Kenma will probably be married off as well, to some fine lady. (No matter how selfish it is, he cannot help but hope that Kenma is not wed to another man. Tetsurou, grown as he is, is still a prince at heart and princes are not used to sharing.)

But they will have each other’s hearts, and that will have to be enough.

 

\--

 

Reality shatters what few dreams he’d had left with a single, cold word.

Tetsurou had thought it suspicious what a quick schedule his parents had set up for his weddings, especially concerning the travel time for his bride-to-be. (He meets her, and she is as kind as she is beautiful; any worries he’d have about her opinions on his own person are quickly dismissed in the face of this.) But he had never suspected _this_.

“Kenma,” the King had told him. The name came down like a guillotine.

He’s hardly been able to sleep or eat since the announcement; the only mercy of it all was that it had been private. It usually isn’t revealed to the public, although it’s far from secret from the court. Tetsurou is left reeling from the feeling that he’s _last_ to know.

Cruelly or kindly, he’s allowed to see Kenma before the ceremony. In less than a fortnight. He has _so little_ time to grasp this, to comprehend the utter brutality of the decision.

Kenma does not seem as blindsided by the announcement as Tetsurou. “Did you know?” he asks, and fears the answer.

Kenma won’t look at him, but he does answer, “I’d assumed. My father petitioned for the second betrothal, but… I guess it didn’t work…”

That is nearly as heartrending as anything else.

Tetsurou is nearly dizzy with the briefest flash of what could have been, of growing old together with Kenma, of attending banquets and sharing status and waking up together. He wants to weep with the pain of it all. He doesn’t know what hurts most, not anymore, but he knows the tears have not yet come. He fears that when they do, they won’t cease. He does not know how he will be able to wed that kind, beautiful, hideously not-Kenma woman.

“It’s okay,” Kenma tells him. It’s the first lie Tetsurou has ever heard from his lips. “It will be okay.”

“No, it won’t,” Tetsurou says. His knees give way and he falls in front of Kenma, clasping his hands tight in his own, throat closing up. He tries to say more—there’s so much to _say_ now, now that they’re to be married and Tetsurou has signed Kenma’s death warrant. He feels he will die yet from the pain of this all, and yet he’s still here. Still kneeling in front of Kenma, unable to even apologize.

 

\--

 

Tetsurou tries everything in the little time that he has. Everything fails; he cannot grasp at plots like his brother; everything crumbles to sand when he thinks he’s made half a step of progress.

He cannot adopt his niece. There is no family of Kenma’s they can use to legitimize their marriage. There are no substitutes for Tetsurou’s first. There are families in existence who would be willing to sacrifice a child in the name of gaining favor from the crown, but Tetsurou does not know them, and he has little worth when compared to winning the hand of his brother, who is safe with a broken curse.

He has never given much thought to the curse before now; Tetsurou had accepted it as a necessary evil of his life. He never expected someone he knew to die for it.

“Why did it have to be Kenma?” Tetsurou pleads as soon as he can corner his mother. Her attendants shuffle nervously but her expression remains as stone.

“His family has ties.”

“Why didn’t you just accept their petition in the first place, then?!”

Her eyes narrow, and her demeanor grows colder. “I will not lower one of my sons to the point of marrying the second son of a duke. This is how it must be, Tetsurou.”

“Why? _Why him_?!” he demands, again and again. (There is no answer in the world that will satisfy him.)

“They were little more than blackmailing us for the chance of smoothing over Kisho’s broken promises. He can regain his son this way,” his mother says like that is the only thing that matters to her. Tetsurou just stares at her in complete disbelief. “The Crown Prince needs an heir, even without a spouse. This way, his eldest won’t have our filthy blood.”

This does not soothe any of the pain that has been consuming him, and now it is Tetsurou who narrows his eyes defiantly at the Queen. “Then why would they offer Kenma as well? If they were really so demanding of us—”

“ _We_ demanded the son. They could not escape this without a price.”

This staggers him more than he’d thought possible, given how everything has already crushed him. He cannot help it; he snaps, seizing his mother by the shoulders, glaring down at her with a tightening grip and teeth bared. “So you got into this duel of spite and cruelty?!”

“Let _go_ of me—”

“Congratulations, you _won_! I am sickened and horrified at this family, but most of all at _you_!”

She finally swats him away at the same time Morisuke forcefully drags him back. “I am doing this for the good of the family!” she hisses at him. Like Tetsurou cares. “I did _not_ want it to come to this, but we have to think of the future. Do you want our line to continue suffering this pain, generation after generation?”

Tetsurou spits on her.

He’s locked in his room after that like a child throwing an unreasonable tantrum. He’s forbidden from seeing Kenma, from seeing anyone aside from Morisuke and the servants who bring him meals. He can do little but contemplate his coming weddings, how his heart aches, and the height of his window from the ground below.

 

\--

 

Tetsurou does not expect a visit from his brother, considering how he has begged him already for help. Kisho still cannot help him in the ways Tetsurou really needs, but if nothing else, Tetsurou must know the details. “How does it happen? When?”

Kisho doesn’t meet his eye. He instead stares at the ceremonial dagger he’d given to him, all those years ago, lying on the desk at the far end of the room. “I don’t think it causes them any pain,” he tells him like it’s meant to be a comfort. It is, but not in a way Tetsurou knew he needed, and he feels ready to break down all over again at the thought of it. “She died in my arms just before dawn. It was quiet. There was no blood or drawn-out agony.”

“Do you know… Miyuki…?” Tetsurou asks in a wretched voice.

“No. She refused to discuss it with me, even when I sought her out. I know it was very difficult for her, but I don’t… I don’t know anything else.” Kisho falls silent, and both of them contemplate how little they knew of Miyuki’s personal affairs. Perhaps, if they’d known more…

“ _Do you think that my brother or my sister was the lucky one?_ ” Tetsurou had asked. He fears he has the answer now, and it’s not a kind truth.

“I will be able to formally adopt both children,” Kisho offers. Tetsurou doesn’t understand why he’s sharing this, so he frowns, but Kisho elaborates, “Koichi and Takara. I will have heirs, no matter who father and mother marry me to next. There will be no burden on you.”

Tetsurou lets out a humorless, hollow laugh. “Some silver lining.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have any more information from you,” Kisho tells him, and at the very least he does sound genuinely remorseful. “Father never speaks of it, either. There’s nothing else I can tell you.”

“You could help me.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Just leave,” Tetsurou tells him wearily. He lays down in his bed and hears his brother leave; it isn’t long before the bed dips with Morisuke settling in next to him. He rubs soothing circles on Tetsurou’s back and doesn’t comment when it’s clear that his shoulders are shaking from tears.

 

\--

 

A week until the wedding, and his brother does help him.

It does not come in the form of any last-minute political aid, but instead in the form of Kisho stepping aside to reveal Kenma, draped in the heavy cloaks of his guard, nervously pulling the hood back to look up at Tetsurou with hope and fear and longing in his gold eyes.

“Thank you,” Tetsurou tells his brother. Kisho doesn’t answer, and leaves them be.

Morisuke bribes the other guards to guarantee that he’s the only one on watch, and the three of them are allowed a quiet night together.

Tetsurou still has tears left to shed, yet Kenma is still dry-eyed, only needing to touch and reassure. He speaks even less than usual. The silence is heavy, but it’s a brace against the outside world, outside of this room, so Tetsurou will take anything Kenma has to offer him. They stay wrapped up in each other and try to maintain normal conversation; Tetsurou and Morisuke chat about the most inane things imaginable, even forcing out the occasional laugh, and Kenma remains burrowed into Tetsurou’s chest from where he’s seated in his lap.

Even that does not last.

Kenma is not caught, but Morisuke cannot help them further, so Tetsurou and Kenma are left alone, locked in Tetsurou’s chambers. It’s not as if Tetsurou gets visitors now, but it’s still terrifying whenever there comes a knock on the door. Sharing meals is nothing new, but the amount of food split between two is; neither of them have gone particularly hungry before except in times of sickness or stress.

Tetsurou isn’t sure which this counts as.

He knows he’s losing weight, and Kenma looks gaunt, exhausted and sad. There are few days until their wedding, and neither of them know what to say. Tetsurou cannot think of any other way to approach this.

He thinks back to his sister, and then to the stories she used to read him. “We could run away,” he says to the ceiling. Kenma’s head is pillowed on his chest, and based on his breathing, Tetsurou might even think he’s asleep. He’s not sure if he wanted his thought to be heard or not.

“What would we do?” Kenma asks in return. He sounds drowsy, his voice little more than a breathless purr, and Tetsurou tightens his arms around him.

“I could become an alchemist.”

“You don’t know any alchemy…”

“I could become someone’s bodyguard,” he suggests. “I have the training. I’m told I look intimidating.”

He knows the two of them wouldn’t really last on the streets. They’re educated, but Tetsurou has hardly left the castle, and Kenma can be timid. Even the thought of working in a brothel to afford food, however, is not as distasteful as what lies in store for them.

But he couldn’t put Kenma through that.

Kenma deserves better, better than half-baked stories and better than a doomed marriage. Kenma deserves to _live_.

 _At least he could live outside these walls_ , Tetsurou thinks. He pulls Kenma even closer to himself, squeezing him until Kenma whines and squirms, hoping to convey all of his regret and sorrow into such a useless hug. Tetsurou’s standards, already so low, slip down further. _At least he would be alive._ He thinks he could put up with anything so long as he had Kenma, actually had him, alive and whole and well.

“You want to try to run away,” Kenma murmurs against his neck, like he’s read Tetsurou’s mind.

“Isn’t it worth it to try?” Tetsurou asks back.

“Not always,” Kenma replies. His voice is so soft Tetsurou isn’t even sure he’s heard it at all.

 

\--

 

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Morisuke says, glancing between Tetsurou and Kenma with growing apprehension in his eyes. “Tetsurou, you’ve been confined to your room. Kenma shouldn’t even _be_ here.”

“Morisuke, please don’t do this,” Tetsurou whispers.

“Kenma, you know you two can’t do this,” Morisuke tries, still speaking at a normal volume, despite Tetsurou’s frantic shushing.

Kenma doesn’t respond. He shuffles closer to Tetsurou, clinging to the cloak that’s too short for him, and he can’t meet Morisuke’s eye.

“My duty is to the crown,” Morisuke says like it pains him. He squeezes his eyes shut and forces out through gritted teeth, “Not to you. Please, just go back to your chambers. I won’t tell anyone that Kenma is here so long as you don’t get caught by anyone else.”

“Please let us go,” Tetsurou begs. “ _Please_. Don’t help them with this. Don’t be another one of my parents’ pawns.”

“If you take one more step, I’ll have to stop you. Don’t make me do this.”

Tetsurou tries, because he can only _try_ anymore for Kenma. But Kenma is worth this, worth the pain that fills Morisuke’s eyes despite how it tears at Tetsurou’s heart.

Morisuke beats him almost bloody, and hauls Tetsurou back to his room, sniffling with every step. Kenma trails behind them both like an abused dog. It isn’t until Tetsurou is sprawled across his bed, with Morisuke holding an ice-filled cloth against his face, that he notices that his guard is crying. He then realizes that Kenma is, too.

Tetsurou hides his face as best he can with his arm, and wishes he didn’t have to hear either of them. Wishes he could do something for them. None of this is fair.

The only kindness of the failed attempt is that Morisuke does not report Kenma’s presence. He just cups Kenma’s round face, brushes away his tears with his thumbs, and repeats like a mantra, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

 

\--

 

“There’s one more way out of this,” Kenma says the day before the wedding.

Tetsurou nods.

Kenma is bound to get caught soon; Tetsurou is bound to be retrieved by the King and Queen for fittings and preparation and apologies for his bride-to-be. He has already received a message from one of the servants who brought his dinner last night. “ _Do not argue further, do not embarrass the crown. Do the right thing, Tetsurou_.”

He’s going to do the right thing.

But not for the crown, and certainly not for his parents. He’s not even certain it’s the right thing for himself or Kenma. But he can’t think of this ending any other way. He can’t bear the thought of a life without Kenma, a life knowing that he was lost due to the cruel political machinations of families who don’t care about either of them.

(He idly wonders, in his less bitter moments, if the Kozume family will still honor their end of whatever underhanded bargain they struck. Those less bitter moments are coming less and less frequently.)

Tetsurou is just tired of this.

Kenma is caught and escorted out of the castle, as they’d expected. It’s still a difficult goodbye. Tetsurou doesn’t care who’s watching as he seizes Kenma and kisses him soundly, conveying all of his love and devotion for him, and Kenma kisses him back impossibly more passionately. They’re pulled apart too soon, and Tetsurou knows he won’t see him again until the wedding.

He has seen his brother and then his sister go through the preparations for their weddings, but it’s different experiencing it himself. The tailor he doesn’t like still pricks him, he is expected to have opinions on matters like food and songs and jewelry, and his mother reprimands him for sneaking Kenma into the castle. He cares about very little of it.

 _But at least I’m marrying Kenma_ , he thinks to himself. Everything remains cruel and unfair, but at least he gets to marry Kenma. They cannot take that fact from him.

He eats meals with his bride-to-be at last, and she is still kind and gracious about what foul things she must have heard about him from his mother. Tetsurou’s heart does warm to her further when she draws him aside and gives him a quiet, “I’m sorry.”

Barring everything else, Tetsurou thinks he would have liked being wed to her.

“I am, too,” he replies.

If she gleans any hint as to what his plans are from that, she does not let it show on her face. She squeezes his arm, and steps back, giving him a more appropriate space. He hopes she can find happiness elsewhere.

The wedding, despite the sacrificial nature of Tetsurou’s first one, is a grand affair. He is, after all, still a prince, no matter how little that seems to mean to his mother, who seems intent on remaining furious with him. It makes it easier to hate her. His father remains distant, cold, and Tetsurou hardly speaks to either of them the entire day.

Kisho, he thinks, knows. Maybe he can recognize something in Tetsurou that Miyuki had possessed. Maybe he just knows his brother better than their parents know their son.

Everything else dwindles to nothing, however, when Tetsurou first lays eyes on Kenma.

A hush falls over those in attendance, and Kenma seems to want to sink through the floor, but Tetsurou can only think _Beautiful_. He is dressed in reds and golds, the color counterpoint to Tetsurou in royal white, and Tetsurou becomes aware that he’s scarcely breathing by the time Kenma steps up next to him.

Neither of them say anything, not even under their breath, and can only stare at one another. Tetsurou doesn’t hear the priest, doesn’t feel any of the eyes on them. Kenma clasps his hand; his palms are clammy, but so are Tetsurou’s. They get this much with each other, at least.

 _We get this much_.

Tetsurou wishes no one else were here with them. Kenma is trembling, he notices halfway through the ceremony, and Tetsurou cannot even begin to think if it’s nerves or stress or sorrow or happiness. He himself tries to concentrate only on the high point of today. Today is about _them_ , and no one in the entire kingdom can take that from them.

After the ceremony, when they are at last allowed to remain hand in hand despite how they’re ushered away to change, Morisuke finally finds a moment alone with them both. Or, alone with two more attendants with arms full of robes and tunics and sashes and finery, but compared to standing in full view of hundreds, this seems blessedly quiet.

Morisuke hugs Kenma and they speak quietly. Tetsurou sits just out of arm’s reach of them and contemplates his crown. It’s new, fine, gold and ruby and obsidian. Kenma would look good in it, but he is only given Tetsurou’s old circlet for this (that he has already worn, in far better circumstances). If they could have made it out of the castle, out of the city, they had enough precious stones and metals on them today to let them live comfortably elsewhere.

If only, if only.

Tetsurou swallows, then jumps when he feels a tentative hand on his shoulder. He looks up at Morisuke, and his guard looks down at him for the briefest moment of such unguarded fondness that it makes him swallow once more. “Congratulations, my prince,” Morisuke says. What’s expected of him. Tetsurou can still see the remorse deep in his eyes.

“Thank you,” Tetsurou replies sincerely. He stands, allows the attendants to drape his mantle over his shoulders, and begrudgingly crouches down so they can place his crown back on his painstakingly slicked hair.

Morisuke startles him again when he holds out his hand. Tetsurou stares at it for a long moment, then takes it—he’s not sure who moves first, but they pull on each other and end up embracing, tightly, both of them shaking with the effort of it. His mantle has come to drape over them both, like they’re children again underneath blankets in their pile of cushions, even though Morisuke swears that they’re too old.

Kenma worms his way in with them, and both of them make room without question.

When they separate, to the tutting and fretting of the attendants who must fix Tetsurou’s clothes all over again, Morisuke quickly takes his hand again. He presses his lips to Tetsurou’s knuckles, quickly, and Tetsurou knows that this is a sort of goodbye. He’ll stand guard all through the night, but he won’t see them both alone again.

He does the same to Kenma, and Kenma leans over to whisper something. Tetsurou doesn’t catch it, but he doesn’t question it, either. He lets them have their farewells.

His heart clenches when he thinks that Morisuke is unknowing of what’s to come. But it’s better this way. Tetsurou may love him, but he said it himself: his duty is to the crown. Tetsurou will respect that, but as such, and since his own duty is to his heart and thus to Kenma, he will have to leave him here.

He wishes this could all happen differently.

Tetsurou and Kenma arrive at the banquet following the ceremony to polite applause. No one is truly invested in the first marriage of the cursed royal family. Neither of them touch their food, despite the disapproval from the Queen, but they lead the first dance without any hitches. Waltzing with Kenma in the ballroom is like a dream; ever since he learned how, he’s rarely gotten the chance to do this with Kenma, outside of practicing in unused rooms or too-narrow hallways.

Kenma always complained that his steps were too long. Tetsurou always complained that Kenma was too short.

They make it work.

After the first dance ends, Tetsurou pulls Kenma close, and they don’t dance so much as sway back and forth, pressed intimately close. He can already imagine the scandalized murmurs the court ladies must be starting. He doesn’t care, and smiles against Kenma’s hair.

Kenma looks up at him, his circlet a little crooked now, and Tetsurou leans down to kiss him again.

 _This_ is what their future should have been.

 

\--

 

They retire to their—their!—chambers early, and not even Tetsurou’s mother could argue against giving him this. Who knows what they expect out of them. He doesn’t actually know what the court thinks of these first marriages; are they pitied, or seen as little more than prostitutes? Certainly, publicly they are praised. The Kozume family will gain favor from this, regardless of Tetsurou’s second son status.

It’s disgusting. It’s terrifying how thoughts of the curse consume him now, now that _he_ must pay its price, now that it’s _his_ betrothed. He’s grown up with the basic knowledge of it, but he had never truly realized how heinous it is.

Or how insidious it is that the entire kingdom simply accepts that its royal family will marry twice. It’s the world’s largest inside joke, and it churns his stomach to think of even still how obediently the nobility will offer up their sons and daughters to it in the name of earning a bit of power.

“I wish this were reversed,” Tetsurou confesses.

Kenma takes his face in his hands, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones, and forces him to look him in the eye. “Don’t say that,” he admonishes, gently, “don’t punish yourself over this. It’s not your fault.”

 _It’s someone’s_ , Tetsurou thinks, but he won’t argue with Kenma on their last night together. “I just.” He sighs. “I love you. I wish this could be better.”

“We’ll be better in the next life,” Kenma tells him. “This life, you and I still have each other. I’m here, in front of you. I’m yours.”

“I’m yours, too,” Tetsurou replies and leans up to kiss him. Kenma is soft and warm and _alive_. Tetsurou covers his hands with his own, runs his palms down the backs, circles around to press against his wrists. He can feel his pulse, still thrumming.

He does not know how long that will last. He will not risk it.

“The flowers are beautiful,” Tetsurou tells him, and Kenma smiles, wanly. “Hold on, stay here.” He gently extricates himself from Kenma’s arms to go over and look at the bouquet in question; his chamber is filled with gifts, most of them decidedly conciliatory, but still gifts. Flowers, jewelry, finery. There will be gifts of food for him tomorrow, presumably to console him. They will be wasted on his family.

The flowers are white, and pretty, and Tetsurou plucks one from the vase to bring over to Kenma. He tucks a long lock of Kenma’s dark hair behind his ear, perhaps a bit sloppily, and pins it in place with the flower.

Kenma blinks a few times, too quickly, and offers him another smile. This time, it trembles, so Tetsurou leans down to kiss him again. “I’m here, too, and I’m forever yours,” Tetsurou tells him.

Kisho had said dawn, but Tetsurou does not wish to risk a moment without Kenma. It feels like they spend so many hours kissing, an eternity of touches and shared breaths and closeness. He knows it’s not enough. It will never be enough compared to the future they’ve been cheated out of.

(Tetsurou had been right: Kenma _does_ look good in his new crown.)

Kenma keeps it on as they sit down on the bed, facing each other, knees touching. The flowers sit between them.

“I love you,” Kenma says first.

“I wish we didn’t—”

“No more arguments,” Kenma gently interrupts. He touches Tetsurou’s hand, and his palm is clammy again.

Tetsurou smiles despite how his eyes sting. “No more arguments,” he agrees. “God, Kenma, I love you. Forever.”

“You could still—”

“No arguments,” he reminds him, and Kenma falls silent.

It’s Kenma who pulls the first flower from its stem. Tetsurou follows his movements, and they lock eyes for the last time. Tetsurou’s vision is swimming with unshed tears, and he thinks he can see Kenma’s eyes glimmering as well.

Tetsurou ensures that Kenma does not fall victim to the curse. Together, they make the prince’s first marriage his only.


End file.
